


never is a long time

by nightwideopen



Category: Marvel
Genre: American Sign Language, Asexual Character, Avengers Tower, But also, Communication, Deaf Clint Barton, Domestic Avengers, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Excessive use of italics, Insecure Clint Barton, Internalized Acephobia, Light Angst, Miscommunication, Multi, Pining, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:27:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23234707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightwideopen/pseuds/nightwideopen
Summary: “It’s okay,” Clint says to Bucky in a breathy whisper. It’s not okay, but what else is he supposed to say?I love you,is what he wants to say.Natasha crosses the room to sit on Clint’s other side, grasping his knee. “Do not be ashamed of who you are, we love you the same now as we did before.”But still not the way I wish you would.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 25
Kudos: 148





	never is a long time

**Author's Note:**

> so basically what happened was that i got an idea for an ace fic and spit out 5k words in 3 days
> 
> never underestimate my ability to project my internalized acephobia onto whoever im fixated on at the moment
> 
> thank you to nny for the quick beta!!!
> 
> enjoy!

It's Tony that suggests it because of fucking course it is. 

He's half past wasted with one gauntlet on and waving around a bottle of champagne, and yelling at Bruce about climate change like he doesn't already know. Clint’s just watching him from the couch and sipping a long-since-gone-cold cup of coffee from under Bucky’s arm, because once the drinks start flowing Bucky is always the only one that remembers how much Clint hates being around drunk people. 

Clint kinda loves him. 

“Let's play truth or dare!”

Clint rolls his eyes, then looks up in time to see Bucky roll _his_ eyes, and then looks across the room in time to see Natasha roll _her_ eyes.

Steve shouts, “Yes!”

Steve sucks. He sucks most of the time already but when he breaks out the stash of Asgardian liquor that Thor left behind the last time he was here, he sucks even more.

Natasha catches Clint’s eye and signs with a smirk, _I've always wanted to have an authentic American high school experience._

Clint kinda loves her, too.

Even though they all – Bruce and Sam included – groaned at the prospect, somehow they find themselves in a circle on the sofas and the floor. Clint stays where he is and watches everyone rearrange themselves around him. Bucky disentangles himself to slink over to where Natasha is cross-legged in front of the coffee table and she slides an arm under his leather jacket to wrap around his waist. Something like jealousy settles in Clint's stomach, and the moment Steve and Sam settle into the spot Bucky vacated Clint steals away with a muttered excuse about needing more coffee.

The silence of the kitchen is nice and the hum of the coffee maker booting up is a respite from Tony's rambling and Bucky's long suffering sighs. By the time he's got a new mug full he's almost, _almost_ ready to face whatever nonsense is about to ensue. 

When Clint clambers back into the party, Bucky already has Steve in a headlock.

“What the hell goes on around here?” he mutters rhetorically as he settles back into the dent he's left on the sofa. Maybe he does sit here too much.

Sam quirks an eyebrow at his comment, and Clint knows exactly what he's thinking. Yeah yeah, Barton is the biggest trouble maker blah, blah, blah. _Whatever._ Normally he would agree, and would probably be in on the antics or at least causing them. But tonight Clint is tired and annoyed and pining.

God, the pining.

Nat’s got her arms around Bucky's hips trying to pull him away from Steve. She's exclaiming, “James, cut it out! James!” He lets up on Steve to pull her into a headlock of her own that just ends up with his face in her neck and a grin on her lips. It’s less of a headlock and more of a hug and probably just an excuse to whisper something in her ear.

Clint kinda wants to drown in his coffee. 

Eventually the ruckus settles down and Tony fixes his gaze on Clint. He's got a dangerous glint in his eye and Clint thinks that he'd definitely rather be anywhere else than on the receiving end of that right now.

“What about you, Barton? What was your first time like? Hopefully nothing like Cap’s over there because– hey!” Steve's thrown an empty plastic cup at him. “That's assault.”

“You're fine.”

Clint squints at him. “My first time what?”

Tony stares at him silently for a few moments before Clint realizes that Tony isn't talking. Tony's always talking. Why isn’t Tony talking?

“What?” he demands.

“Your _first time_.” Tony gestures vaguely. “You know.”

“I really don't.”

“If you can't say the word sex, Tony,” Natasha announces over the table, “Then you shouldn't be having it.”

Tony just flips her off without even turning around, which means his eyes are fixed on Clint as his face goes hot in front of _everyone_. It's incredible how he can be pushing thirty and still manage to feel about five years old around these guys. Maybe one day they'll have mercy on him and just fire him from Avenging so he can hole up in Brooklyn with his dog and avoid these interactions and die alone like his dad said he would.

“I haven't,” he tries to say confidently even as he's hiding behind his mug.

Tony's eyes bug out of his head. But Clint hardly notices that because he's looking past Tony at Natasha and Bucky who are all but wrapped around each other with their mouths agape. Clint really didn't want to do this. Like, ever. More than that, he didn't want Bucky and Nat to know. He should've just lied.

Sam is the one that breaks the silence. 

“Really? Never? Not even like…” 

He trails off with a pensive look on his face like he’s trying to imagine things that aren’t _technically_ sex but definitely _count_ as losing your virginity. Then he gets a look of disgust most likely because he realizes he’s trying to imagine Clint of all people technically having technically not sex but also technically sex.

Clint is very uncomfortable. 

“I’m asexual,” he announces unceremoniously. “And I’m leaving.”

Sam stops him by grabbing the back pocket of his jeans.

“Come on, Barton, don’t go. We don’t have to talk about it.”

Clint doesn’t walk away, but he doesn’t sit back down either. He’s resolutely avoiding looking at Bucky and Natasha so his eyes fall on Steve, whose drunken eyes are still comically wide. His brain is obviously running a mile a minute and Clint _isn’t_ doing this right now. Or ever. He's going to _bed._

“You’re right, we don’t. But I’m not sitting here while you all look at me like that. Goodnight.”

He steps out of Sam’s grip and takes his mug with him to the elevator. No one comes after him, and the blissful _snick_ of his bedroom door closing isn’t as comforting as he was expecting. Clint drops the mug on his bedside table along with his hearing aids, and when he curls up on top of his covers with his shoes still on he finally allows himself to be disappointed. He didn’t ever expect them to be accepting or to understand, and he’d expected the disbelief and prodding questions. But he never expected the _silence_. He never expected to be _embarrassed_. And he _never_ expected Bucky and Nat to just sit there while the anxiety crept up the back of his throat and settled there in the form of unspilled tears.

For all that Natasha and Bucky humor his obvious desire to be in the middle of their perfect relationship, they do a hell of a good job reminding him of just how outside of it he is, just how outside of everything he is.

Clint Barton has been looking for home all of his life and he'd thought he found it with the Avengers. He thought he'd found a family.

Clearly he was wrong. 

x

Clint is woken up by his doorbell lights flashing and an unreasonable surge of anger. When he rolls over to check the time on his phone 3:15 AM is glaring back at him. So, not unreasonable. He's been asleep for two hours. He feels like he's just crawled out of his grave.

“This better be a fucking emergency,” he growls to no one in particular. And once he's fitted his hearing aids back into his ears he finds out that the flashing lights are accompanied by loud whispers just outside his bedroom door. “What the hell–?”

He opens the door to reveal Bucky and Nat, still dressed in their same clothes from the party, both red in the face and looking more than a little ticked off.

“You look mad,” Clint says stupidly. “Whatever it is, it wasn't me. I was sleeping.”

Their anger is quickly replaced by guilt.

“We didn't mean to wake you,” Bucky says. “Sorry it took so long to–”

Natasha digs one of her ridiculously bony elbows into his ribs. If it hurts, he doesn't show it, but he gets the message and shuts up.

“May we come in?” she asks firmly.

Clint nods, stepping back and letting them shuffle in. He sits on the sofa that's opposite his bed, kind of wishing they'd done this elsewhere. But it's too late now. They're in here, in his room where he thinks about them, dreams about them, wishes for them to join him in the bed that Natasha perches herself on. Bucky just hovers next to her until he gets evidently frustrated by the awkward energy in the room and sits next to Clint on the couch.

“We're sorry about how we reacted,” he says without preamble. “I'm sorry for myself and Nat is sorry and we're both sorry for how everyone else reacted.” He runs a hand through his short hair in frustration. “That shouldn't have happened, Clint. You were brave enough to come out to us and we all reacted very badly. I'm so sorry.”

Clint is immediately stunned by his sincerity, by his clear desperation for Clint’s forgiveness. Not even a few hours ago Clint was lamenting the fact that no one cared enough to check up on him, that the two of them hadn't cared. But now Bucky is sitting here, in his room, caring _so much_ that Clint's nearly blown over by the sheer force of it. He’s so stupid.

“It's okay,” he says in a breathy whisper. It's not okay, but what else is he supposed to say?

 _I love you_ , is what he wants to say.

“It's not okay, ястреб.” Natasha crosses the room to sit on Clint’s other side, grasping his knee. “You deserved so much better. If you want to tell us about it, we're here to listen. If not, that's fine too. We just wanted to say thank you for trusting us, all of us. Do not be ashamed of who you are, we love you the same now as we did before.”

_But still not the way I wish you would._

Clint nods. “Thank you.” He doesn't know what else– “Can I just… How about a hug?”

Bucky moves first, lightning fast to wrap his arms around Clint's waist and tuck his head into Clint's shoulder. Natasha follows, her arms wrapping around the both of them until Clint is nearly suffocated by their embrace. It's an illusion and it's borderline masochistic, but it's exactly where he wants to be.

All too soon they both pull back.

“We’ll see you tomorrow, right?” Bucky offers him a small smile.

“Yeah. Yeah, of course.”

Natasha bids him goodnight with a kiss to his forehead.

It’s bittersweet, like the cold comfort of his bed being too small to fit the three of them.

x

It’s not a date, but it sure as hell feels like one when they reach the top of Rockefeller Center; Clint shivers violently because he didn’t realize it’d be this windy and Bucky tugs his hoodie off and pulls it snugly over Clint’s head. It’s the sweater that Steve got him for his birthday, the one with a kitten embroidered on the sleeve over where the star sits on Bucky’s left arm. It smells mostly like Bucky but a little bit like Natasha’s expensive conditioner and it’s fucking torture. For a moment, Clint lets himself pretend but somehow that's worse, so he tells himself that this is– this is what _friends_ do. 

He ignores the fact that it’s not what guys do with their third wheels while their girlfriend is two feet away. 

“Even after all this time I still can’t believe the city is this _tall_ ,” Bucky muses.

He’s been wanting to come up here forever but he didn’t want to come alone so Clint offered to take him. And when Natasha overheard them talking about it and admitted she’d never been to the Top of the Rock either, well. That’s when Tony had walked in and insisted on arranging a private tour for the three of them. And when they got to the top they all resolutely ignored the fact that the Tower is _right there_ and the view from their bedrooms is _exactly the same_. 

“Still can’t believe I live here,” Clint says. He can barely hear himself, it’s so goddamn windy. This was a better idea in theory. “Think we can grab tacos on the way back?”

Nat laughs and he’s surprised to hear it so close. Suddenly her chin is on his shoulder and she’s got her arms around his waist, hugging him close because he's _still_ shivering.

“You would be thinking about food right now. Clint, we’re at the _top_ of New York City. Look!” She points to the skyline excitedly. And it _is_ breathtaking, but it doesn't hold a candle to her smile right now, or the way the wind is making strands of red hair brush her face and get stuck to her lip gloss. “You’re not looking!”

She’s not mad though, she’s still laughing. But she's looking past Clint at Bucky whose shoulder is pressed up against Clint’s. It’s devastating, the way she looks at him. He knows it’s the way they’re both looking at her. It's the same way he looks at Bucky, too. Clint is just caught in the middle. 

“Поцелуй его,” Natasha says. 

Clint turns to Bucky to gauge his reaction to whatever she said and he ends up with Bucky’s lips on his. He’s too startled to close his eyes and just stands, frozen and wide eyed until Bucky pulls back far enough that Clint can see he’s blushing.

“What the hell?” Clint whispers dumbly. Or at least he thinks he does. Bucky's face is very close to his, close enough that if either of them moved the slightest bit they'd be kissing again. 

“Is this okay?” Bucky asks. Clint can just make out him signing as he speaks in his periphery, because Clint is apparently still bad at hiding when he can’t hear all that well.

It’s a stupid question because it’s definitely okay. It’s more than okay. But it makes no goddamn _sense_. Bucky is with Natasha and Natasha is with Bucky and there’s no room for Clint in that equation. They’re happy without him and that’s fine. Clint would do anything to see them happy, even if that means keeping his nose out of it. Right now his nose is very much in it and he can see every fleck of light that's bouncing off of Bucky's dark brown eyes. He's right in the fucking middle of it and if he doesn't say something soon he's going to end up kissing Bucky again and he's not sure that once he's allowed to start that he'll be able to stop. 

“It’s–” He looks at Natasha, who’s looking at him with an expression he’s _never_ seen on her face before. “I don’t understand. You have each other.”

Natasha scrunches up her nose. “Yeah? We know. But we'd like to have you, too.”

This is Natasha, who tells him he’s a mess and has to pull him out of piles of blankets on rainy afternoons. She'll pin him to the gym mat with no mercy and call him pet names in Russian while she stitches up his injuries. She’s standing here on his right side, stuck to him like a limpet, smiling soft and hopeful. Bucky is on his other side, having just kissed him, looking just as uncertain. He’s the one that Clint goes to for soft hugs and quiet evenings, who pets his dog like he wouldn’t rather be anywhere else. Bucky is midnight trips to Mcdonald's and wrestling over the remote. They're both… they both… He wants them both and they–

Clint looks Natasha right in the eye and the sincerity in them is painfully real. And Natasha never lets anyone see anything she doesn't want them to.

The realization catches in Clint’s throat and he suddenly feels suffocated between them. He takes a step back, then takes a few more, and suddenly he's inside with a security guard giving him a weird look. There's nowhere to sit inside, so he just awkwardly shuffles down a hallway until he's in the elevator and feeling stupid for running away.

But that's what he does best, right?

x

Clint isn't avoiding them, so they find him fairly quickly. He's just lying on the rug next to the coffee table in his Bed-Stuy apartment, petting Lucky and staring at the ceiling. He's about two seconds away from busting out his harmonica from underneath the sofa when there's a knock on his door.

“Come in!”

Clint winces as Lucky steps all over him to greet whoever comes in. It's probably Natasha and Bucky, but it could be Kate. He hopes it's not Tony. Maybe it's Bobbi; she likes yelling at him when he’s already down.

Bucky comes into view first, upside down and peering down at Clint with his bare arms crossed, unimpressed because Clint is still wearing his hoodie. Natasha follows, face unreadable. That's more like it.

“Are you ready to be an adult?” she asks dryly.

Clint makes a show of looking at his wrist where he's most definitely not wearing a watch.

“No,” he says.

“Fine. Подобрать его, James. Come on.”

Clint finds himself being lifted and carried onto his own couch, placed firmly in the middle of it so that Bucky and Nat can settle on either side of him. He hates this.

“We're going to talk about this,” Natasha says firmly. “We've done enough dancing around each other for months and it's getting old. You want us and we want you and it doesn't have to be more complicated than that but you're making it so.”

Clint deflates. This doesn't make any sense. He says as much.

Bucky speaks up this time. “You think we don't want you the way you want us? Hate to break it to you sweetheart, but you're not as subtle as you think you are and we didn't think we were either. Or at least, I wasn't trying to be.” He sets his flesh hand on top of where Clint is pulling at a loose thread on his jeans, gently urging him to stop before he tears the fabric. “We noticed, and we discussed it, and we decided to have a little fun with you. But then it stopped being fun. You looked miserable last night, and not just because of what happened.”

“It was never fun,” Clint says bitterly. “But I'm glad you enjoyed toying with me.”

“We weren't–”

“If you know so well how I feel about you then you'd know it wasn't fun for me. I wanted you both to be happy and it broke my heart everyday that it wasn't _me_ making you happy. You'd go off from whatever we were doing, excited to leave and see each other. I was just a placeholder for your very real relationship that I have no business being a third wheel in.”

“Clint.” Bucky's hand tightens around Clint's. “I'm so sorry. We never wanted you to feel that way. You weren't a placeholder, I genuinely enjoy every minute I spend with you and I– _we_ want you to be part of those ‘after’ moments now, too.”

“Do you want that?” Natasha asks from his other side. “Is that okay?”

It's– Clint thinks back to his horror on the roof, to the way they stared at him last night. He knows he's never going to be what they want him to be, and he doesn't even know what they want from him out of this. His role in any relationship is minimal at best; he's a drag in the morning if he manages to get out of bed, he's useless before coffee, all he ever wants to do is hang out in the range and lie on the couch. He's barely a good friend, much less a boyfriend, much less to _two_ people. It's a disaster waiting to happen, he's better off pining for a relationship he knows that he can't have any part of. He's being offered exactly what he wanted on a silver platter and he's too scared to take it for fear of accidentally throwing it away. Because he wouldn't do it on purpose, it's just how relationships go for Clint Barton; ex-boyfriend extraordinaire.

And he has no idea how to honestly voice these fears without sounding like he's making excuses.

“I might not want to have sex with you,” is what he goes with. “Ever.”

Natasha just laughs. “Clint, we don't care about that. It's okay, we understand.”

“I don't think you do.”

“So tell us,” Bucky says, “Before we do anything, just tell us. Nothing you say will change our minds, but if it matters to you, then we should know. If you want this, that is. If we're totally off base, then you can tell us that, too. We're still friends, Clint. Right?”

Clint turns to him. “Of course.”

“Then it's okay. Nothing changes without your say-so.”

“I'm not–” He huffs in frustration. He doesn't know how to put this. “I'm never going to be able to be what you need. People look at me a certain way, they expect me to _be_ a certain way. And for the most part, they're usually right. I'm half a dozen stereotypes rolled up into one and… I don't want to fuck it up. This. Us. I don't– It's not like– _fuck,_ I'm sorry.” He doesn't know when he started crying. “You're the most important people in my life. You're my best friends, my _family_. I don't _have_ any other family. As much as it's killed me to not have you the way I want it's just better this way. It's safer. I can't lose the only family I've had in twenty years because of some fucking blip in my DNA. It's not– Jesus Christ. I'm not making excuses, I just–”

“Clint. Clint, it's okay. Breathe.” Natasha sounds reluctant to interrupt his incoherent rambling but she's got a hand on his chest now, trying to regulate his breathing. He doesn't know why he can't breathe. It was pretty easy a minute ago. “It's alright, just breathe, okay?”

He falls into her arms on instinct more than anything else.

“I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I just don't get it. How could you– It's all I wanted but–”

“Clint, stop it,” Bucky says. “Stop thinking you're not worth our time. All you've ever done is make us happy and be a good friend and you've been sacrificing your own happiness by not wanting to, what? Get in the middle of us? We _want_ you to be in the middle of us. You-you're not a third wheel. Or, you are. But we're not a bicycle, we're a tricycle, and we _need_ a third wheel. Okay? We could probably get by with just two wheels but it would be so much better if we didn't have to. And we don't. So please…”

Clint doesn't mean to laugh but it tumbles out of him against his will. A _tricycle_. This man is ridiculous and Clint fucking loves him.

“Oh, you're all better now?” Natasha teases.

He eases off of her to turn to Bucky and sling an arm around his neck. Teary and red-eyed he pulls Bucky into a kiss anyway. It's chaste and unfamiliar, but it's sweet and Clint could definitely get used to the soft insistent press of Bucky's lips against his own. He wants to. He wants to _so_ badly that it burns him up inside.

“You both deserve so much better than someone like me.”

Clint may be taller than Bucky but all of his height comes from his legs and he has one hell of a slouch when he sits, so Bucky has to look down at him when they’re sitting on even ground like this.

“Let us be the judge of that, okay?” he says against Clint’s lips.

Clint nods. “Okay.” And he lets Bucky pull him back into his arms and his mouth and his unspoken promises. And it’s not like he hadn’t imagined what kissing Bucky would be like, but he also hasn't had much frame of reference to make an accurate guess. Bucky kisses like he’s starving for it, holding Clint’s face in both of his hands until he can get one of them tangled up in the mess of his hair. He maneuvers Clint to exactly where he wants him and Clint just _lets him_. Bucky can do whatever he wants; he’s gentle and he’s eager and Clint thinks that maybe he wouldn’t have been so afraid to kiss people if he knew it could be like this.

It seems that they both manage to forget that they’re not alone and Clint startles at the feel of Natasha’s hands coming to rest on his waist from behind him. She tuts at Bucky, gently pushing him away and pulling Clint backwards until he’s rested back against her front and has to look up to see her soft smile.

“Alright, James. Жадный. You’re unbelievable.”

Then she’s kissing him too and it’s not better or worse but it’s so pleasantly different that it gives Clint a bit of whiplash. She’s less eager and more calculated and she’s so much smaller than both of them. But she’s just as commanding, if not even more so, and she’s got one hand under Clint’s chin to keep him in place. She gets one hand under the hem of his – _still Bucky’s_ – hoodie to expose his stomach and barely a second passes before he feels the cold adamantium of Bucky’s arm on his skin. Clint shudders and accidentally whimpers and it’s a lot. It’s so much and he doesn’t know what to do with it. He sits up in Natasha’s arms.

“Hey,” Bucky’s hand is still on his stomach. “Too much?”

Honest. Be honest. Clint nods. It’s too much for right now.

Bucky smiles. “Okay. Want us to go?”

Clint shakes his head. “No, ‘course not. Want to watch something?”

It’s easier than he expects for them to shift and adapt to the sudden change of pace. They don’t say anything, or roll their eyes or complain. Bucky just shuffles around the couch until he finds the remote between the couch cushions and Natasha disappears upstairs for a few minutes. When she comes back she’s in one of Clint’s t-shirts and a pair of his fluffy Christmas socks. She’s got two blankets from his bed and Lucky is on her heels, following her to the couch to rest his head on Clint’s lap.

Bucky clears his throat and when Clint catches his eye he’s blushing.

Clint has to hold in his laugh. For all that Bucky was suave and confident not even five minutes ago, he’s all tongue tied now, looking at Clint with a grimace.

“What is it?”

“I, uh… Okay if I take my jeans off? I don’t wanna make you uncomfortable. I know Natasha is like– she–”

“It’s fine, Buck.” Clint can’t help his smile. “You're allowed to be comfortable, too.”

"Yeah, right, of course."

x

Clint falls asleep at some point because of course he does. He wakes up to fingers brushing through his hair and a weight on his shoulder and his ears– Huh, his ears are fine. He can’t hear anything though. When he starts to stir so does the person on top of him. It’s Natasha, and he can feel the vibration of her grumbling, probably something in Russian. The hand in his hair – belonging to Bucky – stills.

“Mmm,” he complains wordlessly. “Keep going. S’nice.”

Bucky shakes with a laugh, but his fingers keep moving after that. When Clint finds the energy to open his eyes, the credits of something are rolling on the television screen. He doesn’t know if it’s the movie Bucky put on originally or a different one, but either way he sits up as much as he can without jostling Natasha and signs to Bucky for his hearing aids.

“You were both really tired,” Bucky says unprompted, voice low. He mutes the TV. “Nat, she was– She was up all night worrying about you. We know we took it too far, but we were honestly just waiting for you to say something. And you– It really seemed to bother you last night, especially when you told us…”

Bucky trails off and the conversation just hangs in the air until Clint gets the wherewithal to realize that he’s supposed to respond. His first thought is that he can’t imagine a world where anyone cares about him enough to worry about him, but then he feels bad about that. He knows that they care, they’ve made it plenty obvious on more than one occasion and he’s always just brushed it off. But they cared enough to apologize for how they reacted when he came out to them, they cared enough to be honest with him, and they cared enough to stay with him even after he fell asleep.

“This,” Clint waves a hand vaguely, “Me being ace. It’s ruined… every relationship I’ve ever had. Because I wasn’t honest about it from the beginning. I led people on and told them I wasn’t ready _yet_ and this and that and–” Natasha stirs beside him and he knows she’s listening. “I knew the moment you found out I’m asexual that this – us – would be off the table. I just… wanted to pretend. And you let me. You let me pretend for months. And it was nice, but it was horrible. And I’m still not completely convinced that it’s not a dealbreaker because it just… It always is. Relationships don’t function without sex and I’m not sure how long you can pretend that it won’t matter. Because it’s gonna matter. It always does.”

“No, Clint.” Bucky sounds half desperate, half angry. “ _You_ matter. We don’t want to be with you because of what you can do for us. We want to be with you because you make us – _me_ , because Nat can tell you herself – you make me happy. That’s it. There’s no dealbreaker. Unless you don’t want to be with us. If you don’t want to we’re not going to _force you_. And we’ll cross that bridge when we–”

No. 

“No. _No_ . Don’t say that. It’s not something we’ll get to. It’s here, right now, I’m telling you. I don’t _want to_. Ever. That’s the end of it. There’s like, a 1% chance that I’ll ever be comfortable enough to even _try._ And I hope I can. I _hope_. But I can’t have you hanging on 1% of hope until you figure out that you don’t want to be with me because I’m never gonna put out. It’s not happening. So just, figure it out now, or don’t. But I’m not– I can’t–”

God, he’s getting worked up again. It’s the middle of the night and now he’s thinking about every person that’s ever thrown him out of their bedroom because he said _stop, no, I don’t want to_. And he’s lucky; he’s fucking lucky that that’s all that happened. But he’s lost friends, he’s lost relationships, his fucking _marriage_ –

“Clint, it’s okay.” Natasha’s hugging him again, petting his stomach and holding him tight. “You have to trust us, okay? You’ve always done that. You trust us to have your back when people are trying to kill you, you can trust us in this, okay? We’ve got your six and we’re not going to betray you that way. If you say never, that means never, and we can sort out the details of who wants what later. That’s all he meant.” She must make a face at Bucky because he nods. “Nothing’s going to change our minds. We care about you more than you know.”

Bucky nods again, reaching out with an aborted motion before dropping his hand back into his lap. Clint can’t have that; he grips Bucky’s metal hand in both of his own.

“I love you guys,” he says, devastatingly honest. “I don’t want to lose you.”

Bucky shuffles forward so that he’s draped across Clint’s front, pushing him further into Natasha until she’s lying against the opposite arm rest of the couch.

“Never,” Bucky says into his sweatshirt. Then, Natasha into his hair, “Never.”


End file.
